


A Confederacy of Deceivers

by Kierkegarden



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A Heavy Dose of '35 Owls' Inspo, Angst, M/M, Oral Sex, Overindulgent use of the word "Reality", Pensieves, Self Indulgent Philosophy References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8660581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kierkegarden/pseuds/Kierkegarden
Summary: Albus Dumbledore stops deceiving himself, 45 years too late.





	

_“This considered, the kingdom of darkness... is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light.”_

 Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I beg of you, Albus, this one last time.”

 

The Minister stood, his back to Albus, silhouetted by the office window against the setting sun. For that, the professor was grateful. He paced the length of the Minister’s office another time, concentrating on his heeled boots. His face betrayed his calm, unwavering tone.

 

“I’m sorry, Minister Spencer-Moon, but I have to decline again. My place is at Hogwarts. I am not confident I could destroy the dark wizard Grindelwald. I fear quite the opposite would happen.”

 

 _Grindelwald._ The name caught like a lump of dough in his throat and he swallowed it down.  Albus still saw them as two separate men: Gellert and _Grindelwald._ Gellert, the charming wild-haired teenager sneaking into his bedroom window to draw flowing ink routes on maps of Europe. The dark wizard _Grindelwald_ was the man who would eventually travel those routes; a stranger. _I’m too wise,_ Albus mocked himself, _too wise for reality._

 

“Sit down, Albus, please.” The minister’s desk was built of sturdy redwood. It was neatly organized: large stacks of photographs, documents and books aligned just so, leaving room for a large pensieve in the middle. He reached into the top most drawer and and selected a velveteen album. Albus had seen these books before, they were used to store vials of memories. He reluctantly seated himself across from the minister, watching him lift a white string of memory from a vial with his wand.

 

“One of our Aurors,” the Minister explained hastily, “The massacre took place in a Muggle region of Vilnius, Lithuania, supposedly to suppress a rebellion. Cover your nose, Albus, the stench will -- it will hit you if you’re not braced for it.”

 

* * *

 

Gellert had not taken advisers until now. The war was going well and he was cocky but his army was expanding and so was the resistance. Wartime strategy dictated that he must select commanders, bureaucrats of war to enforce order. Having officers meant that he must humor them over cups of sludgy black coffee and pretend to listen to their opinions.

 

“They are going after you directly, sir. You take out the head, you take out the beast,” Henry Mace sighed and took a swig of his coffee, his beetly eyes looking around the empty pub as if it was bugged. Mace was a pale, stringy man who Gellert had picked up in Britain. He was titled Spymaster and managed an exchange of incentives and tip offs from ministry workers. Gellert gave him power because he had never had it. The man would grovel at Gellert’s feet for acknowledgement. Loyalty was only too useful.

 

“Assassins? Aurors? They’ve tried it all, I’m too skilled in legilimency for a sneak attack. What’s their new plan?”

 

Emiline Toth laughed, “Perhaps they’re finally going to offer up an aggressor.”

 

“I would like to be given a duel on equal grounds,” Gellert smirked, “I don’t even try to hide my location anymore, all they would have to do is send an owl.”

 

“They did, sir, to the Lithuanian victory camp” Mace pulled an envelope from a pouch in his cloak.

 

Gellert laughed as he took it: It would be like Ministry to send an owl. Too bad at being bad so they had to be formal. Oh, Englishmen and their manners. Gellert entertained himself with the thought of them stepping into cue, an infinite line of duelists; piled to the ground one by one until there was no opposition left. Diplomacy was only be wasted on the few who were useful. He ripped the Ministry seal and his heart skipped a beat.

 

* * *

 

_Old Friend -_

 

_Wasn’t it you who, one summer an eternity ago, criticised one Thomas Hobbes for his absolutism? You said you needed me so I could be the voice of reason while your temper grew hot. You said no one monarch could possibly make his power real for the entire world - but two. Or did you just say these because Hobbes was a muggle? Did you say these because you thought I’d feel them like honey melting on my tongue?_

 

_I convinced myself that the Gellert I knew was dead. I see now that he is not, but that he never lived to start. Where are you, old friend? Besides in Lithuania, laughing amid piles of dead men?_

_The Ministry told me that I shouldn’t write with hesitance, nor fear. But my words are failing me._

 

_I would beg of you, Gellert, don’t do this. Let me be your voice of reason. But you already have, and now I have a duty to confront you. For the Greater Good, or for my own aching heart so I can feel some solace. I’ve avoided it for too long._

 

__\- A_ _

 

 

* * *

 

Only headmasters were required to have pensieves, but Albus had bought one for his quarters ages ago. It was prettier than any painting that could have decorated his walls and Albus had many. When anyone asked him what his pensieve was for, he said he found it useful to sort through memories. In reality, there was nothing useful about it. But memories were pretty and reality wasn’t and Albus Dumbledore had always preferred pretty things.

 

He pointed his wand towards the center of his head and paused, thinking of stories he’d heard where wizards had given their lives to their own wand. Perhaps, they had run dry of pretty distractions. Perhaps, they were too wise for reality. He pulled out a silvery strand and vanished into the haze of nostalgia.

 

A light summer rain was falling on Godric’s hollow and it was mid afternoon. The cobble streets were empty of people and a sad string of laundry hung beside the Dumbledore estate, becoming ever-wetter. Aberforth would have been fine wringing the water out with magic but Albus didn’t like his clothes to wrinkle and was not about to waste his time straightening them.

The door swung open and Gellert jaunted happily out, followed by a young Albus.

“English weather, every day is rain.” Gellert exclaimed.

It shocked Albus every time anew to hear how heavy his lover’s accent was that summer. He recalled it less crude and noticeable but perhaps that was because Gellert was a fast learner.

Young Albus laughed. “We don’t have to go out yet, Gellert. We can wait until it clears up.”

“No.” Gellert took the taller man’s hand and swung it pleasantly as he walked, “Better now, anyways.”

The pair strolled onwards, making pleasant conversation and the rain only got heavier. Young Albus drew an umbrella from his wand. Albus, the watcher, did the same. It was tradition for this memory. He’d only seen it about a hundred times already. Right about this point they would start talking philosophy.

“Say what you will about muggle kind, and you’re right about most, but their literature is superb!” young Albus gushed, “Their philosophers are, for their primitive knowledge, absolutely astounding.”

“Muggle philosophy,” Gellert countered, “is just angry men trying to define a world they couldn’t possibly know.”

Albus broke his hand free to adjust his overcoat, “Actually, modern muggle philosophy is all about defining what they can know. They’ve moved out of the realm of the world at large and now they’re focussing on what it means to exist.”

“Morality?”

Albus nodded.

“I have experienced enough of muggle morality. They would see men like you and me imprisoned or worse -” Gellert grabbed Albus’s free hand back and tugged him off the road. They started on a familiar wooded pass to the little creek, the watcher in tow.

Albus scoffed. “Most muggles don’t even know wizards exist let alone --”

“No,” Gellert interrupted, abruptly coming to a halt. He took Albus’s wand hand as well, lowering his umbrella. Leaning in close, the German boy kissed him gently on the mouth, then whispered so that the Watcher could barely hear, “Men like us.”

Albus pulled him back in, needily, clumsily as they fell in a heap on the wet leaves.

“I couldn’t wait much longer,” the younger boy confessed, laughing as he pulled each layer off of Albus with ease, til he was naked, shivering and smiling like a maniac. With surprising strength, Albus rolled on top and pinned him, unbuttoning his vest.

“If you had told me that this was my reality four months ago, I would have called you mad.”

Gellert smirked, sliding down under Albus’s body til his mouth hit the stiff head of his cock. “The greater reality will be you and I, in twenty years, when the war is won, doing _this_ every single night on our royal bed.” He planted a kiss before engulfing it fully.

“For the Greater Good, of course,” Albus managed to add before submitting fully into a low moan.

 

* * *

 

_Reality._

 

How cruel reality was to Albus, another sunny morning with no owl to greet him in the great hall.  He had dressed in his house colors for a Quidditch game because his students loved to see him there. Something was distinctly humorous about a distantly smiling Professor, old before his time, seated and cheering for a silly game. Hogwarts had increased security, danger would not be allowed in, it was late April and the school session was drifting lazily to a close.

 

Before the match, he washed his face again and popped a lemon drop into his mouth. He pulled an old book from his ever growing collection: _The Leviathan_. Hobbes had said that life was nasty, brutish and short but to live in ignorance was darkness. A greater irony was that the man sustained himself on nothing but barrel tar and beer but lived to 91. His existence was miserable.

 

 _How judgmental I am,_ Albus thought absentmindedly, _for I subsist myself on nothing but pretty empty memories._

 

He brushed his long auburn hair now scattered with plenty of white and plaited it, fastening it with a Lion’s head tie. He had always secretly enjoyed his own internal melodrama and idiosyncrasies.

 

Sighing, Albus reached up to put the old book back on the shelf when, like clockwork, a tawny owl flew through the open door and landed on his wash basin.

 

* * *

 

_My Albus -_

 

_What is reason when it is channeled through a wand? You are just like me now, I’m afraid but so, so far away. I’d extend the offer again, to sit by my side, to sleep in my royal bed, I would beg of you. But you’ve already made up your mind to confront me as an enemy._

_Would you have me spare Muggle writers and thinkers and arrange them in my court? Fine. You could have had your cake and eaten it with all your books to read and your lover by your side._

 

_You’ve convinced yourself that Gellert is dead, have you? Well, he is not. He’s here and he’s real and reality is your greatest enemy, I’m afraid, but my greatest ally. It’s not too late to switch sides._

_You haven’t avoided me because you fear me. You’ve avoided me because you love me and you fear that love more than anything. If you confront me and lose, you will not stop loving me. If you confront me and win, you will not stop loving me. You will not stop because you cannot stop._

_Still, I will meet you in London next week. Perhaps for one last time._

 

__\- G_ _

 

  



End file.
